- [Announcer] The following program
is brought to you in part by a special grant
from the Friends of Channel 21, Incorporated.
(jazz music)
- [Narrator] At the turn of the century,
hockey was played quite differently
from the version we know today.
The first goals were simply two poles
placed in the ice six feet apart,
a situation which caused many problems for the goal judges.
Apparel was designed by Rube Goldberg.
The leg pads were adapted from cricket pads.
And protective equipment was nonexistent
by today's standards.
Either the shots weren't as hard, or the sticks
were more resilient than the modern models.
Percy LeSueur's goal stick lasted for six seasons.
Peerless Percy is also credited with inventing
the gauntlet-type goalie gloves
and the goal cage, used from 1912 till 1925.
(ragtime piano music)
Until 1922, all goalies defended
the nets using a stand up position.
The rules provided a $2 fine for any netminder
who left his feet to block a shock.
Clint Benedict of the Montreal Maroons
influenced the change in the rules,
admitting that if you did it a bit sneaky
and made it look accidental, you could fall
on the puck without being penalized.
Benedict was also the first goalie
to wear a protective face mask.
When his swollen nose healed, he discarded
this leather monstrosity for good.
During the '20s, protective equipment improved,
and the baseball cap modeled by Hap Holmes
became popular with all goalies.
Georges Vezina patrolled the Montreal Canadian
nets from 1910 until 1925,
playing his last game ravaged by tuberculosis.
Evidently, Vezina had other talents besides goaltending.
During his short lifetime, he fathered 22 children.
These are the gloves of Lorne Chabot,
a goalie involved in two of hockey's most memorable moments.
In a game between the Rangers and the Maroons,
Chabot was struck over the eye and not able to continue.
In the days when teams did not carry a second goalie,
Lester Patrick, the 45 year old coach
of the Rangers, was forced into the nets.
The Silver Fox gave up only one goal
in a two-one overtime win.
With the Maroons, Chabot was the losing
goalie in hockey's longest game.
During the eighth overtime period,
five hours and 51 minutes after play had begun,
Chabot took these pads off and left
for home with a one to nothing loss.
The game was played in the days before the ice
was resurfaced between periods, and it is rumored
that the winning goal was scored with a sand wedge.
During the 1930s, the diminutive Roy Worters
became the first goalie to use the back of his hand
to deflect the puck to the corners of the rink.
Chuck Gardner of the Blackhawks
wears heavier protective gear,
which has changed little since that time.
The first goalie to score an assist was Tiny Thompson.
He was also the first goalie to be removed
from the ice in favor of an extra attacker.
Bill Durnan of the Canadians was the only
ambidextrous goalie in the National Hockey League,
deftly switching the stick from hand to hand,
to block and catch shots.
Turk Broda was a money player.
Always at his best during the Stanley Cup Championship,
yet his paunch almost cost him his job.
In 1950, Broda was ordered to lose
10 pounds or remain suspended.
A crash diet put Broda back into the nets
after missing only one game.
The Bruins' Mr. Zero, Frankie Brimsek,
was a Native American from Eveleth, Minnesota,
who marked his NHL debut with six shutouts in eight games.
In the 1950s, the slap shot, traveling at speeds
of over 120 miles per hour, became the goalie's nemesis.
The awesome slap shots of Bernie Geoffrian
and Bobby Hull could literally shatter a man's skull.
To the goalie it was not a laughing matter.
Things were not now a question of a few stitches.
The position could cost you your life.
Glenn Hall was miserable with his job,
often vomiting before games and between periods.
"Having a goal scored on me is like having
"My pants pulled down in front of 15,000 people," he mused.
Terry Sawchuk compiled a brilliant
career goals against average, even though he had
a broken right arm that didn't heal properly
and wound up inches shorter than the left.
He also suffered severed hand tendons,
a fractured instep, punctured lungs, ruptured discs,
injuries which would qualify some workers
for permanent disability income.
Yet he is the only goalie in hockey history
to record over 100 career shutouts.
Some goalies managed to remain glib.
Gump Worsley had the thankless task of defending
the goal of the New York Rangers,
one of the worst teams of the '50s.
When asked which team gave him the most trouble,
Gump's stone-faced reply was the Rangers.
Jacques Plante, perhaps the most
famous goaltender to ever don the pads.
Plante was a rover, a goalie who would skate far
from the cage to clear or smother a loose puck.
He was eccentric, but he was also brilliant.
And he introduced a degree of sanity
to the position when he adopted the face mask in 1959.
The mask was an obvious move.
Yet the Montreal coach Toe Blake tried his best
to dissuade Plante from its use.
No one will ever know the number of kids who will not
have broken jaws, missing teeth, or be severely injured
in the goal now, because Plante remained loyal
to his greatest contribution to goaltending.
When Plante is elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame,
the mothers of every young goalie in the game today
should attend the induction ceremony.
The ageless Johnny Bower played goal
until almost the age of 50, a testament to the fact
that for the goalie, mental attitude often compensates
for tired legs in heavy skates.
- First of all, the goalie's skate
is a much heavier skate.
And then the regular forward skate,
you'll notice that the forward skate and the goalie skate's
blades are completely different.
The forward skate has a rocker on each end.
The goalie skate blade is straight, there is no rocker.
You'll notice that in the regular skate,
there is no protection along the side.
Whereas in the goalie skate, you have the full protection
here to protect the ankle and make the skate safe.
You also have a much different blade here,
which doesn't allow the puck to go through there.
That's a straightedge blade.
You have a steel toe and padding around the toe.
And all the way up to the top of the ankle.
And there are obvious reasons for this.
You're gonna get hit in the toe,
you're gonna get hit in the side.
And the boot is completely different.
The whole skate really is different
than the regular forward skate, and for obvious reasons.
A forward isn't gonna be stopping very many shots with it.
He's gotta have the rocker to have the ability to turn.
The goaltender's skate doesn't have to have the rocker,
because he doesn't have to turn.
In addition to the skates, and most people aren't aware
of all the equipment that a goaltender wears,
but he has goalie pads that can average 10 to 15 pounds.
He's got heavy arm padding and shoulder padding.
He's got a heavy chest protector.
He's got much heavier gloves than the regular
forward skater does, that are protected on the outer sides.
He wears a heavier helmet or face mask
than a regular player.
Most people don't realize that the weight
of what the goaltender's carrying,
which can be in excess of 30 pounds.
And that's a great deal of weight to be carrying around,
and the movements that he has to make,
those movements are usually very quick movements.
And so the equipment becomes another factor
in the uniqueness of the goaltending position.
- [Narrator] The goalie's job requires him
to successfully cover 24 square feet of open goal mouth.
Since his body and pads cover only about 10 square feet,
it is essential that he consistently place himself
in the proper position in front of the goal.
- Okay, we're going to talk about
probably the most important thing
for all goaltenders to learn how to play,
and that's playing the angles properly.
In most cases, in the youth level,
all the way through to collegiate level,
there are very few shooters that are going to be
able to pick defined corners.
Thus, if the goaltender plays the angle very well
it's obviously to his advantage.
Now, we use the goal crease as a very basic thing
for the goaltender to work out of.
We encourage all goaltenders,
whether they're young goaltenders or collegiate
to play out on top of that crease.
Just outside the very corner of the crease.
And he should always maintain that level of the angle
with the shooter, wherever that shooter may be on the ice.
He should always stay on top of that crease.
The only time that a goaltender should
begin to move back in is when the shooter
gets in with about a three or four foot radius of the net.
Then the goaltender will start
to move back in with the player.
Most goaltenders have a tendency to start
to back in much sooner than the three or four foot area.
Now, a couple cues for the goaltender.
If the man were to have the puck on the blue line,
where the blue line intersects the boards,
then we would want our goaltender
to be right out on top of the corner of the crease.
So that his skates would divide the corner of that crease.
Again, if the puck's on the intersection
of the blue line and the boards, the goalie would be,
so the intersection of the crease here.
The point of the crease would be between his legs.
Then as the man moves to the corner,
the goaltender, to maintain the angle,
would move down the crease, but again, not back in.
Not back in.
And again, most goaltenders have a tendency to move back
into the net instead of down the outside of the crease.
As the player would then come across
from the blue line towards the middle of the ice,
the goaltender would move slowly across the net
and stay out on top of the crease.
Most goaltenders have a tendency to move too quickly
across the crease, and they get too much of an angle.
Again, if most goalies play the angles correctly,
there are very few shooters at any level
that are gonna pick that playing corner consistently.
From the angle, which becomes the first priority,
I want to go through quickly some
of the basic saves that a goalie would make,
starting with the feet first.
To make a basic skate save,
a man were to shoot the puck to that corner,
to make the skate save, the goalie would drop down
on that knee for a balance, turn his skate out and back,
in that manner that Dave Onkan is showing here.
The angle here then would allow the save
to put the rebound in the corner.
Balanced point, turn the skate,
straighten the leg out, keep the stick on the ice.
Most goaltenders have a tendency to kick
straight out at the puck, which is incorrect.
Which is incorrect.
Same principle on the other side.
The shot's on the ice, you drop that knee for balance.
Legs straighten out, and the skate is at such an angle
that the deflection will go to the corner.
From the very basic skate save,
you would go to the stick save.
Most goaltenders at any level are not very good
with their stick, including the collegiate level.
A lot of work needs to be done with it.
The stick save is made very simply
by maintaining your balance,
don't lunge out, but maintain your balance,
and just let the stick slide and shoot it out to the side.
Maintaining his balance.
Now, to reinforce that, to make sure that if he misses
with his stick he has something else,
we then throw the skate behind it.
When he lets the stick slide.
Easy, very easy save, but most
goaltenders will not use their stick.
The same thing if a man were to come
out of the corner with the puck.
The goaltender should use his stick
to keep him back in that corner.
Or to break up a pass that might
come out in front of the net.
And again, the very basic principle here is to let
the stick slide all the way up to the knob.
And you get a good full extension,
and you don't want to get into a position
where you're leaning forward or lunging
at the puck because you're off balance.
From there, we go to the glove saves.
A very difficult save for most goaltenders
is the shot a foot or a foot and a half off the ice.
Notice again he's gotta make a skate save.
He drops down on one knee.
Turns the skate.
And now he will lower that arm down.
Lower that arm down.
Most goaltenders have a tendency to go up with the glove,
which leaves this full area in here open,
and that's where you see many of your goals scored.
Then, from there, we go to the glove save high.
Same principle, get down underneath the shot.
Use the knee for balance.
Then from there we gotta be able
to get up off the ice, and go down to make a save.
You have to have the ability to get up,
lean back, you dig your toes in,
and both legs come up at the same time.
When you're in your proper goalie stance,
proper goalie stance.
My glove's out at the side, weight evenly distributed.
And stick out in front of you.
Don't play with your stick in here,
because you can't control the rebound.
Play out, and you give with the puck.
Those are some of the basic saves
that goaltenders have to make, and they make them
the same way whether he's five years old,
or whether he's 20 years old.
Then, to practice this, and repetition
is extremely important.
We start the set of 14 by rocking
your skates off to the side.
That's one.
Down, that's two.
Back up, skate save.
Skate save.
Shoot the stick out.
Slide and stack the pads.
Get up, slide and stack from the other way.
Get up.
Glove save low.
Glove save low the other way.
Glove save high.
Glove save high the other way.
Down in the V.
Get up, freeze the puck.
And dive out and poke it away.
Well, you know, there's an old saying.
And Bob Johnson brings it up a lot,
is it takes a goaltender to know a goaltender.
And it's sort of a joke, but I think it's really very true.
And unless you've been in the situation,
you have no understanding of the goaltender whatsoever.
And he pretty much just is a target practice a player.
And in practice, the players don't really say much to him.
He doesn't get an opportunity to let out
some of his tensions or pressures
that a normal hockey player does.
In a game situation, he's isolated the whole game.
He doesn't get a chance to talk to anybody.
He doesn't get a chance to sit down
and get a drink of water.
The position is very unique, just simply
because he's isolated, he's totally by himself.
I think one of the big problems with the goaltender
is that he gets very poor coaching.
There are very few goalie coaches around.
And so the practices are never geared for him.
Again, he's in that unique situation then
that he's gotta coach himself, unlike any other position.
And I think the mental pressure that most people
don't even understand at all is a very trying factor.
Whereas the other players in the game
of hockey don't have that pressure.
And when they do have it, they have a way to release
by hitting somebody, or going over on the bench
and gathering their thoughts.
The goaltender just doesn't have those opportunities.
He's by himself.
He's sometimes like a pitcher in baseball.
He has full control of the game at times,
and other times he has nothing to do with the game.
It's a very difficult position to play in.
I think, because of that, it takes
a different kind of person to play there.
But I think that mental preparation is probably
just as important as the physical aspect of the game.
And that's something that is very difficult to teach.
And you try to work on different drills to improve
that concentration, but you'll see a lot of times
where a goaltender will give up a goal
that you probably could have stopped,
and that's just a breakdown in mental concentration.
And it's very difficult to explain.
It's a big part of his game.
And different people react differently to ways to handle it.
But again, it's difficult to teach.
And I think that on a given night,
it can be a totally dominating factor for the goaltender.
A person like Mike Dibble likes to be left alone.
And that might be playing cards or shooting pool,
but he doesn't want to be involved
with a lot of players on the team at that point.
He wants to stay away from the game as long as he can,
and then when he gets to the game,
then he wants to concentrate on his job.
A guy like Julian Baretta, a little more outgoing,
and has a number of superstitious things that he does.
And he'll go through a set routine.
He'll back in the net a certain way.
And the preparation before the game
really varies with the individual.
And I know when I played that I didn't want
to be bothered with any members of the team.
And I might play bridge, or I might just go down
in my room and take a nap or listen to the radio.
What you try to, I think, and most goaltenders
will admit to this, is you try not to do things
that would cause strain on your eyes
or take a lot of concentration.
You try to get away from the game as much as possible.
And you try to rest your eyes.
There aren't many good teams that have poor goalies.
And a goaltender, and it's happened in a number
of different situations at all levels of hockey,
a goalie can win the game.
He can be 90, 95% of your game.
And there just aren't very many good
hockey teams that have poor goaltenders.
You're not going to win a league championship,
or the WCHA or the Stanley Cup or whatever
unless you've got a good goaltender.
He's the most important player on the ice.
If he has a bad game, no matter how good your team is,
there's a good chance that you're going to lose that game.
If a goaltender makes a mistake,
you get 8,000 people that see that mistake.
If a wing, a defenseman, center makes a mistake,
in most cases, they may not see it, or the end result
may not be the red light turned on behind you.
And again, it goes back to the uniqueness of the situation.
And the goaltender's in a world by himself out there,
and a very difficult person to understand.
And that's why I say I think it takes
a goaltender to understand him, one that's been through it.
And the unfortunate thing is if he's great,
in many cases, it's the team that won the game.
And he doesn't get the due credit in many cases.
If the team loses, in almost all cases,
at all levels of hockey, the answer
is the goaltender had a bad night.
It isn't the team had a bad night,
it's the goaltender who had a bad night.
And this is why more young goaltenders quit playing goalie
than any other position in hockey.
They don't, people don't understand them.
They don't communicate with that person.
And the goaltender almost always is the blame for the loss.
- [Narrator] Despite the support
and confidence of teammates, despite the proper
mental attitude and total concentration,
things sometimes just don't work.
The puck must cross the goal line
totally for a goal to count.
Apparently, Mike Dibble has made the save.
Or did he?
Mike's reactions to referee Dino Panicci's
decision tell the story.
Perhaps our title The Goalie,
Hockey's Last Man is a misnomer.
At least as far as this peewee goalie is concerned.
- [Sue] I played forward for about two years.
And I wanted to see what goalie was like,
so I just tried it.
I had to work hard at getting that position.
Beating out the boys.
And trying to stop the puck.
- [Narrator] Sue Mussey, who tends goal
for the Eastside Hockey Hawks in Madison,
worries more about her goals against average
than about affirmative action.
Her teammates consider her a good goalie in a league
and a game which essentially dominated by males.
The unique problems inherent to the backup goalie
are explained by Brian Virgin,
a junior at Madison East High School.
- Well, during practices, I have to do the same
as our starting goalie, Brian Cook,
because I never know when the time's going to come around
when I have to go out on the ice
and do the job that he was doing.
So my physical stamina and mental concentration
has to be as high or higher than his.
I never know when the time's gonna come
when I have to go out on the ice.
And then I don't want the team to feel down
when I do go out, I just want them
to consider me their number one goalie.
When game time comes on, I have to get
psyched up differently than Brian.
'Cause he knows he's going to play, and I never know
when I'll have to go in on the spur of the moment.
On the bench, I usually talk to the other players
that aren't getting enough ice time, like the sophomores
and the other goalie that's on our team.
And occasionally, I'll glance up in the stands
and check out the women.
I'd be relieved to know that I was going in ahead of time.
But being backup goalie, you always don't get that chance,
because you never know when your team's
gonna go out in a period and maybe score
six or seven goals in one period.
And the possibility is always there
that Brian will get hurt and I might have to go into a game
where the score's still zero-zero.
- [Narrator] Former all-American Robbie Moore,
who loves to play on and with the spectators' emotions,
often manages to keep his eyes on the puck
and on the crowd at the same time.
Or so it seems.
- [Robbie] When there's 8,000 screaming people,
it's very hard to put them out of your mind.
And instead of letting them bother me, I try and,
you know, get along with them.
And the rinks that I've played in along the way,
it's been, you know, pretty cool,
because people have related to me as a person,
not only as the opposition.
When I go out there, and if I can, you know,
have a rapport with the people,
I feel much more comfortable myself.
And I feel I can do my job better,
if they're going to applaud me for something that I've done.
I can't see, you know, this big hate relationship
between opposing fans and the players.
The people that I find are the most obnoxious are the people
that don't know very much about the game themselves.
And they're there because they feel that that $5 ticket
enabled them to call me anything they want to.
People that come down and pound
on the glass, and everything like that.
More or less, they could be a frustrated athlete
that is not out there in the limelight,
getting the attention that they should
by doing something constructive.
They're doing something very destructive
to get their attention.
The people that I really enjoy
are the people that are there, and if they see
I've done something wrong, and they can notice that,
well then more power to them.
Because, you know, if they're yelling,
oh, you should have done this or that,
then I know that maybe I should have,
and it helps me myself to realize
that possibly that's what I should have done.
I guess the worst thing I ever had thrown at me
was I got a light bulb off the back
of the head when I was in junior.
And it didn't hurt, but it just
scared me when it exploded and it hit.
And there's another arena I played in,
a junior in Stratford, and I thought it was very foolish,
they sold apples in the arena.
And the apples used to fly and stuff like that.
I've had hotdogs thrown at me.
When we were playing Michigan State one time,
and that's one place where the people really hate me.
They pulled their goalie, and with 20 seconds to go,
we scored our seventh goal that put the icing on the cake.
So I went around the arena doing a little dance.
And beer cans flew.
And marbles, and bags of jujubes,
and peanuts and everything.
So half an hour later, the game resumed
for the final 20 seconds, and,
I wasn't allowed to play the final 20 seconds of the game
because the police got me out of the arena.
They figured that someone might have a gun in Lansing.
You know, that might be a foolish thing to say, but,
I didn't want to get shot.
I really enjoy the game and that's why I play the game.
If the fun ever went out of it,
I think that's when I'd stop.
I guess I might be a sort of a Jekyll and Hyde figure.
People see me as fun-loving.
They see me as someone who doesn't seem to have
a care in the world, if the puck goes in, it goes in.
You know, big deal.
See if I can get the next one.
But I think that the main thing is people
don't see me before the game.
They don't see me in between periods
in the locker room, when I'm getting sick.
And I do vomit, I get very upset with myself
if I feel that I've let my teammates down.
I get very upset if I feel I'm not doing the best job I can.
Not only for my teammates,
but for the people who come to watch the games.
I feel that the people deserve to see
me at my best at all times.
And,
I become, the day of a game, a lot of times,
maybe an hour or two before the game,
I don't talk to people very much.
I find myself being very reclusive.
I'd much rather you know, get cut over the eye
or something like that than to,
than to let a goal in.
Because if the puck hit me in the eye,
then it didn't go in the net.
But,
that's my job, my job's to stop the puck and nothing else.
And once that I feel I'm incapable of doing my job,
then it's not worthwhile being out there.
Well, how many jobs do you know of that as soon as,
you know, you fail a little bit in your job,
made one tiny mistake, a red light flashes on,
and 8,000 people stand up and call you a bum?
You know, there's not too many jobs that that happens in.
But you know, the good really outweighs the bad.
- [Narrator] Good must outweigh the bad,
for there are thousands of youngsters who play goal
at every level of organized hockey.
Despite the severe mental pressure
and the possibility of personal injury,
there are no vacancies for goalies
in the college and professional ranks.
Someone with experience is always
available to fill the position.
The goalie is the focal point in the vortex
of the world's fastest game.
Yet there seems to be an universality
in the position which transcends sport.
The challenge of man's age old desire to overcome fear,
to master himself, to probe his very nature.
In a sense, this challenge separates
the goalie from other hockey players.
The goalie is unique.
And rightly so, for he represents
the very essence of the game.
Without him, hockey would be meaningless.
(jazz music)
- [Announcer] The preceding program
was brought to you in part by a special grant
from The Friends of Channel 21, Incorporated.